


Some Are Gone, And Some Remain

by Diminua



Series: I'll Try Not to Sing Out of Key [3]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Alternate Universe (just one step sideways), Chapter 3 is the reason for the rating., M/M, Might be some spoilers but more likely simply won't make as much sense..
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-05-09 20:20:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5553947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diminua/pseuds/Diminua
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>More in this AU. This time Utopia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

He feels it before Martha even gets there. Perhaps he felt it as soon as the Master took his hand. Or perhaps he thinks he should have done, and is colouring his memory with portents that were never there. 

Because there should have been something, a spark, a clash of cymbals, a flash of lightning. Before Martha comes pounding round the corner, talking frantically about a fobwatch that isn’t a watch, and a Timelord who is no longer a Timelord. 

He doesn’t have time. A rocket of humans to send to Utopia – whatever Utopia might happen to mean – and a faint, growing presence in the back of his brain, and panic, because the one he most craves is the most to be feared. 

He shouts at Martha, trying to get details; shouts into the radio receiver, trying to get a status update. The rocket must clear the atmosphere, they must be gone, safe, out of the Master’s power. Only then can he devote his attention to.. 

He’s done it, an answering cry of triumph from the Lieutenant on board, and another even louder inside his head, deafening. Enough to make him stumble. He knows that voice. 

Martha and Jack haul him up, but he’s already pulling himself out of their arms, running, calling back over his shoulder.

‘He’s done it. He’s out.’ 

‘Who? Doctor!’ They chase and catch him up as the door slams across in front of him and traps them. He reaches immediately for his sonic screwdriver. 

‘Doctor.’ Jack speaking for them both now. ‘Who is it?’ 

‘He calls himself the Master.’ Quiet now in his head, even while he speaks and operates the sonic and frantically calls out with his mind and every ounce of concentration he can spare. ‘He’s a Timelord. Dangerous, and brilliant, and mad and..’ The Master has resurrected every mental wall that was ever between them and that is not good. It means he’s angry. ‘And he died and then was brought back to fight the Time War just because he’s dangerous and brilliant, and he’s my best friend and my worst enemy and.. just.’ Everything. Amazing and terrifying and no respecter of human life. ‘I need to get this open. He could do anything, absolutely anything, and he’s got the Tardis now.’ 

‘Is Chantho safe?’

‘Not if she gets in his way.’ 

 

‘Oh they’ll get out.’ The Master is clearing the computer screens. ‘After I’ve gone.’ He turns a bitter face to his assistant. ‘Let the Doctor stew here for a hundred years working out how to get away.’ 

‘Chan – he has helped us – tho.’ 

‘He has helped his precious humans. As you have.’ His eyes narrow. ‘Tell me did it never occur to you in all the time you’ve known me to ask about this.’ He thrusts the fobwatch under her nose. ‘All those years.’ He turns away. ‘Well you can all rot together. It’s not my concern anymore.’ He ejects something from the computer and sneers again. ‘Utopia.’ 

‘Chan – Professor Yana – tho.’ 

The reproach in her voice only makes him angrier, ripping apart the cable that feeds power from the Tardis into his own apparatus. The machines that took him so long – decades – to build from shoddy and substandard materials. 

‘Your professor, my dear, was an invention. A disguise so perfect that even I forgot who I am.’ 

All that work, never acknowledged, never respected. Trapped inside a tiny human mind, an aging human body. He would like to smash it down, apart, open. All of it. Everything and everyone. 

‘Chan – who are you tho?’

‘Ask the Doctor.’ He can taste the desperation as his fellow Timelord tries to reach him, but the drums are louder still. A call to war, to death and destruction. He ignores it all, refuses to care as the Doctor reaches the inner door, knocking and pleading with him. ‘Yes, ask the Doctor. Get him to tell you about Gallifrey. About Earth. About Skaro. You’re going to have a long, long time to listen to it.’ 

He is over the threshold of the Tardis as the Doctor and his ‘friends' crash into the room. 

‘Professor. Master, please.’ He can’t help but look at that beloved and treacherous face, just one more time, eyes dark and glad and so many other things the Master can’t read or doesn’t want to. Then he steps back and slams the door.

More banging. More shouting. ‘Listen to me. Everything’s changed now. It’s only the two of us.’ 

He can't let that go. Flicks the intercom on just so he can respond to it. 'Oh Doctor, do stop talking gibberish. Was there ever anyone else?’

‘Then let me in. Please. Just stop and think and let me in.’ 

Later perhaps. Not yet. He starts the dematerialisation sequence. Curses as sparks fly from the console. The Doctor has locked the co-ordinates. 

Well, he’ll pay for that. The Master doesn’t know how yet, but somehow. 

‘End of the universe.’ He calls out. ‘Have fun. Bye-bye.’

It’s not the voice of Yana, it’s stronger, more confident, and Martha recognises it from somewhere, but she doesn’t know where, and Chantho is shaking and apologising for not stopping ‘the professor’ and the Doctor is fixing Jack’s time wriststrap or whatever it is so they can follow ‘the master’ and then there’s not enough time to think about where she’s heard that voice.

Here they go.


	2. Chapter 2

She knows from the TV, shop windows, public screens, even before they make it to her flat, where she digs out a hooded top so Chantho can hide herself from prying eyes and fires up her laptop so the Doctor can research ‘Harold Saxon’s’ past.

‘How has he done all this?’ The Doctor asks. ‘The most, the absolute most time he could have been here is 18 months. I mean, the Master was always sort of hypnotic, but this is on a massive scale.’

‘I was going to vote for him.’ Martha admits.

‘Why, what were his policies?’ But she can’t remember. Just the sound of his voice. Sounding good, like she could trust him.

‘That.’ The Doctor points to where her fingers are drumming at the arm of the sofa as she speaks, her voice going dreamy and eyes unfocussed. ‘That is how he’s doing it. Mass hypnosis.’

‘So what is he going to do next?’ Jack asks. ‘And what kind of a person calls himself the Master?’

‘Well it’s.. he chose that name a long time ago. Is was all about control with him, at one time.’

‘Looks like it still might be.’

‘Perhaps.’ The Doctor has put up his own internal walls to stop the Master finding them, to protect Martha and Jack and Chantho, but his instinct is still to call out to him, to plead with him to listen. To melt into him and never let go. ‘We need to get close enough to find out.’

He pulls out his Tardis key, busily planning. Distracting himself. ‘I need to create a perception filter for each of us. Don't worry - it’s like being invisible. No-one will see us, or rather they’ll see us but they won’t notice us. Should get us into Number 10 at least.’

 

Which works well until they’re caught on the stairs up to the first floor and brought up to the Prime Ministerial office for sneaking in, the Master says, like cutthroats and thieves.

‘Did you really think a perception filter was going to work on me?’ He asks. ‘I’m almost insulted.’

‘How did you do all this in eighteen months?’ The Doctor asks back.

‘Fifteen.’ The Master corrects. He’s grown a beard – a neatly cropped affair a few shades darker than his hair. It changes the shape of his face completely. Or perhaps that’s the way he moves, the supercilious eyes and scornful half smile, the new crispness to his voice.

‘Fifteen. Right.’ The Doctor processes this. ‘An entire personal history, mass hypnosis and leader of the country. Fifteen months.’

‘You’re forgetting the bestselling novel, Doctor. Clever, isn’t it? The Queen sends her regards, by the way.’

‘You were always clever.’ The Doctor admits. ‘Why are you doing it?’

The Master ignores the question, asks his own instead. ‘Where are they Doctor? Where is Gallifrey?’

‘Gone.’

‘How can it be gone?’

‘It burned. I burnt it. I couldn’t find another way.’

‘The Timelords?’

‘Dead. The Daleks too, more or less. I was meant to go with them.’

‘Oh I’m sure you were. All hail the martyr to the cause.’ He leans forward. ‘But tell me Doctor, how did it feel, two almighty civilisations burning? You must have felt like a god.’

‘Stoppit.’

‘Um.’ Martha asks, awkwardly, not liking to interrupt. ‘What’s that noise?’

‘Journalist. In the cupboard. She was asking too many questions.’

‘Is she alright?’

‘Well she’s not dead. Dead people are quieter. Ask the Doctor if you don’t believe me.’ The Doctor winces at that last jab, and moves out of the way to let Martha and Jack unlock the cupboard.

‘Why are you doing all this?’

‘Do keep up Doctor, because I knew it would annoy you. Besides, there was a power vacuum.’

‘That’s not an invitation to fill it.’

‘Oh, well, you should have said.’

‘Leave the Earth alone.’

‘You dumped me here.’

‘You stole my Tardis.’

‘You stole it first.’

‘You wouldn’t even let me explain.’

‘Fine.’ He settles back in his chair. ‘Then explain.’ His eyes say this better be good.

‘I tried. I tried everything.’ The Doctor wilts in the face of that stare. ‘I just.. I couldn’t find another way. It was us or everything. Everyone. You’ve every right to be angry with me.’

‘Doctor.’ It comes out as a sigh. ‘I was there when the Daleks took the cruciform. I knew then that it was the end. You were just the instrument.’

‘Is that when you ran away?’

‘I was so scared. So I went as far as I could. To the ends of time. To Utopia.’ There’s something horribly sad in his amusement. ‘So ridiculous.’

‘Is it?’

‘Of course it is. I don’t know what that signal was but I do know there was nothing out there for those people but emptiness. The vast consuming nothing. Sometimes you just know.’

Something connects in his mind. Something that should have been obvious. ‘Can you hear them?’ He asks. ‘The drums. The never ending drums. Tell me you can hear them.’

‘I'm sorry. Only you can hear them.’

‘You’re not listening.’ The Master prowls around his desk, his hand reaching for the Doctor’s lapel to pull him forward. ‘Stop apologising and start paying attention.’

‘Doctor.’ Jack cautions, but Martha waves him to silence.

‘Listen.’ The Master touches him at last, hand fisting in his jacket, pulls the Doctor down to bring their foreheads together, pushing forward across the mental barriers. ‘Listen.’

Contact. It’s like a balm, a cold compress on a throbbing wound.

Until the Doctor flinches back, eyes widening with shock. ‘What’s in your head?’

‘It’s not in my head. It’s coming from somewhere else.’ He clutches at his temple. With the Doctor gone the drumming is louder than ever, but at least now he knows it’s not him. ‘I only just worked it out when we were talking, but’s it’s so obvious if you just stop long enough to think. It’s a signal, a repeating pulse, like the one I used to hypnotise them.’ He waves a hand at Martha and Jack and – Rook isn’t it? Something Rook - as representatives of the human race in this place and time. ‘Or that ridiculous call to Utopia. Someone is trying to get in my head.’

The Doctor restrains himself from pointing out that if true, this would only be karma.

‘Come with me.’ He offers instead, reaching for the Master to pull him close again. ‘We can find out what’s causing it, perhaps. I can help.’

He deflates slightly at the Master’s most cynical smile.

‘Keep your friends close and your..’

‘Alright. If that's really how you feel. We can fight across the constellations if it’s what you want. Just not here. Not on Earth.’

'What do you want, Doctor?'

'I've missed you.' He admits. ‘Master, please. I have missed you so much.’

‘I do like it when you use my name.’ It sounds lewd, somehow, the way the Master says it, and Jack coughs meaningfully in the background. ‘And it’s not as if I’m having fun here. These humans are so limited – and whatever your sentimental attachment to the creatures I can assure you that their politicians are every bit as two-faced as our own.’

‘Well they’re politicians.’

‘I had a meeting of the cabinet earlier this morning, and it was honestly all I could do to stop myself from gassing the lot.’

It’s the Master’s sort of joke, and although he knows he shouldn’t, the Doctor smiles.

‘I think we should go.’ Martha whispers to Jack, but there’s no need. The Timelords have all but forgotten them.

 

Chantho holds the door as the humans pass through and follows them out, closing it behind her. 

‘You too huh?’ Jack asks. She supposes that must mean she looks sad.

‘Chan – I think he is happy – tho.’

‘Make sure they drop you off somewhere good.’ Martha tells her. ‘And say goodbye from me.’ It was never going to happen. Best to just get out.

‘Is that it?’ Ms Rook asks. ‘Are we just going to leave them to it? And who are you all anyway?’

‘Martha Jones, medical student. Chantho, and..’

‘Captain Jack Harkness. Torchwood.’

‘If it’s alien it’s ours.’ She quotes.

‘But if it’s leaving it’s not our problem.’

‘Can I cite you on that?’

‘If you like.’

‘Good. Well.’ She may have a story, at least. That’s something. ‘Can I buy you both lunch? I have a feeling there’s a lot going on here I need to understand.’

Their voices fade as they descend the stairs, but Chantho is still trying to hear them, and doesn’t notice the click of the door behind her. She jumps as it opens.

‘There you are.’ The Doctor says brightly, sticking his head through. ‘How do you feel about history? I mean for example, living in it?’

‘The Golden Age of your own people.’ The Master explains. ‘You’ve always said you missed them.’

They want to be rid of her, that much is clear, but they haven’t forgotten her completely, and they are trying to be kind.

Yana was always kind of course, and without having to try, but Yana is gone. Only the Master is left, and she does miss her people. Humans are not the same.

‘Chan – I think yes, tho.’

‘Good, good.’ The Doctor says, hurrying past her. ‘This..’ He hesitates at the top of the stairs, realising he doesn’t actually know where the Tardis is, turns back.

‘Master. Which way are we going?’

‘Forwards Doctor. Always forwards.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Audience rating will go up in chapter 3. Please stop here if you'd rather not.


	3. Chapter 3

‘Where to next anyway?’ They haven’t spent too much time in the conglomeration, although it’s the sort of place the Doctor usually finds fascinating. Their tentative connection is too distracting; embryonic, old, fresh, familiar, and all those other annoying labels that don’t quite pin meaning down. 

They have embraced more than once, but they still keep touching, skin to skin, fingertips to wrists and temples, sharing sparks, teases of sensation and memory. 

It doesn’t stop the Doctor talking though, because short of being gagged the Doctor is always bloody talking. 

‘We will need to check up on Martha and Jack at some point.’ Then, after a pause just long enough to take in the Master’s expression. ‘Maybe I’ll just check up on Martha and Jack at some point.’ 

‘You do that.’ 

His fingers have enclosed around the Doctor’s wrist like a bracelet, moving and sliding under the Doctor’s sleeve as he turns and reaches into the Master’s hair. 

‘I suppose we don’t really need to go anywhere just yet.’ The Doctor loves all that, dashing about from place to place, showing the universe off to his companions. Righting wrongs and generally behaving more like some sort of half-baked Don Quixote than anything..

‘Where did you hear about Don Quixote?’ The Doctor interrupts.

‘You lent me the book.’ 

‘Did I? I don’t remember that.’

‘Of course I never returned it.’

‘Of course.’ The Doctor leans in, resting their foreheads together, finally falling silent. He can hear the drums like this. Not as loudly as before, when the Master was showing him the way, but loud enough. It troubles him that he doesn’t know what they are or how long they’ve been there. 

Human minds are complex, more fragmented than they know, but deeply rooted in a sense of journey – childhood, adulthood, old age – that makes them simple to navigate. The Master’s mind is order out of chaos, connections and cross connections and isolated areas he simply refuses to access. There’s still something of the cheetah in there, chained and muzzled, but not gone, there’s the swirling madness of the vortex, a memory so ingrained it colours everything else, like a crack through ice, and there are the drums, unending and maddening. 

It feels like he’s on a bridge, thin and rocking, and staring down into a chasm of fire, and yet the bridge spans the distance and stands the heat without so much as a crack. 

‘Unsubtle metaphors.’ The Master murmurs. ‘You always did have a melodramatic brain.’ 

He pulls back, the bond stretching and slowing, but still perfectly intact, and the Doctor wonders what the Master found in his mind in return. A quick stocktake throws up nothing useful. The man is far too good at slipping in and away again without even disturbing the dust. 

‘Dust, Doctor? You don’t flatter yourself.’ He takes a loose hold of the Doctor’s wrist again and pulls him away from the console, lips twisting in a wicked smile. ‘Shall I show you what I found?’

‘Is it going to be something I don’t want to know?’

Everyone has locked doors. The Master’s not unique in that. 

‘Only if you’re very prudish this time round.’ 

‘Oh.’ Oh. Ooh. The Master has been prying. 

The Doctor will not kneel. He will not kneel. Even though that’s exactly what’s happening in his head and it feels so good, and the Master knows, damn him, and is openly smirking. 

‘Nothing to be ashamed of Doctor.’ 

The grasp on his wrist becomes metal, handcuffs, pulling behind his back, restricting him. 

It only lasts a moment though, and then reality floods back and he’s still on his feet, lightly held, leaning against the Master, and not bound at all. 

He could break the hold if he wanted, he could throw up his internal walls, and he could walk away. He does none of those things. 

‘If we’re really going to do this, I’m going to need something soft to fall on.’ He says instead. 

‘It’s your Tardis, Doctor. Where would you suggest?’ 

 

The Doctor’s suggestion, in fact, is a large wicker pod with dozens of small square cushions. It’s clearly not a bed, because beds have mattresses and aren’t usually sited next to croquet lawns, but it’s wide and padded and well lit, unlike the couch in the library, and it feels oddly private, like a secret cave. 

They move slowly back together at first, feeling their minds and their skin rub up carefully against one another, as if the intervening few minutes have made them shy. The Master’s body isn’t as supple as he’d like, but he is much stronger than he was as a human, and the Doctor is absurdly easy to pin down, with his thin wrists and ready surrender. 

The Master moves as if to kiss him, stopping mere inches away, not quite closing the distance. Instead he eases into his mind again and feels what was almost going to be complaint shiver into pleasure. 

The Doctor still wants to be kissed though, his lips parted and greedy for attention as the Master just brushes them with his own, allows himself to linger before pulling back again.

‘No. I really think I’d rather watch.’

He’s so tired, this Doctor. The Master can feel that tiredness, bone deep. The sheer exhaustion of always being the smartest one in the room, always expected to pull off some sort of miracle. No wonder he’s so keen to let someone else take the reins for a while. Slip inside his mind and absolve him of thinking, dig deep into his fantasies and paint those images behind his eyes, those sensations on his skin. Until he’s writhing and bucking his hips, trying to get the friction the Master is denying him. 

‘Soon. I promise.’ It will be all the sweeter for the wait, and he really is lovely when he’s this close. This one might even beg, if he thought begging would have any effect. Might enjoy it. 

If the Doctor wanted to he could break the Master’s hold. If he wanted to he could sort the false sensations from the true. He doesn’t want. It’s the last thing he wants. It’s been so long now, much too long. No-one can make him light up like the Master does. It’s like he’s mapped every nerve and deep-buried kink, and the sheer glee with which he plays them and drags them into the light is yet another layer of indulgence. 

A little friction now, almost enough, and his thoughts scatter again, but he knows he would beg. Of course he would beg. He would say anything the Master wanted him to if he would only.. 

‘Just my name.’ The Master breathes. ‘That’s all I need.’ 

‘Master.’ 

He flexes with the force of what goes through him and oh, he didn’t realise he was being held back from the edge until he was allowed to fall over it, the Master still holding him down as he collapses, chest heaving. 

He ought to wait and catch his breath, probably, but he’d rather wriggle out from under that loosened grip and start reciprocating. With his mouth, mostly, licking and kissing greedily, pulling in lips and earlobes and fingers to suck on before releasing them again, dark, wide eyes looking up with absolute candour into the Master’s own. _You like to watch. Watch then._

They unbutton the Master’s trousers together, the Doctor complicating things by refusing to wait, mouthing wetly through the material at the shape beneath. Coming up for air grinning when the Master hisses impatiently at him and tugs on that impossible hair to force him to back off. 

It is, the Master supposes, quite flattering. The way the Doctor dives in, mouth wrapped around his naked erection, tongue – quite a bit of tongue. Not going too fast at first, not wanting it to be over all at once, but working it quite nicely. 

_You’re thinking too much._

The thought draws the Master’s eyes back down to where the Doctor is, making sure he has the Master’s full attention before he sinks down to the very root and slides wetly up, sucking each sweet slow inch as though the whole experience were delicious. More tongue, and the Doctor’s hands find his own, encourage them back into his hair so the Master can show him what he likes. 

Faster, but just as thorough, and the Master’s precious control is as good as dead. 

The Doctor splutters and swallows as the Master comes. Half laughs at himself because it has been a long time, and it was rather too ambitious, wipes his mouth on his shirt sleeve and falls back with a contented sigh. 

They’re not touching, and they’re both comfortably back in their own heads, but the connection is still there. The Doctor can feel the other Timelord’s presence like a counterweight on the universe. Even though he still doesn’t quite trust the Master’s patience with ‘lesser’ species, it’s still supremely comforting. 

He reaches out and takes the Master’s hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title taken from the Beatles track 'In My Life'


End file.
